Is it the end of my laptop?

[Superman041]

I've got a MacBook 2010 white unibody , with 4GB RAM but the bootup time and shut down times can be extremely slow . I'm running Mountain Lion. Every time I turn it on I even get the spinning wheel sometime ! I timed it took about 45 secs to shut down.

Starting applications can be quite slow as well . Anyone able to help ? I've cleaned out all the trash files and do not think reinstalling will help. As well as running disk checks.

 

[bbydon]

I've got a MacBook 2010 white unibody , with 4GB RAM but the bootup time and shut down times can be extremely slow . I'm running Mountain Lion. Every time I turn it on I even get the spinning wheel sometime ! I timed it took about 45 secs to shut down.

Starting applications can be quite slow as well . Anyone able to help ? I've cleaned out all the trash files and do not think reinstalling will help. As well as running disk checks.

Might be the hard drive is starting to fail... does it click or make more noise than it used too?

 

[mabaty]

Surely the hard drive is slowing/failing. I would try a wipe and reinstall first, then a new hard drive if that doesn't work.

 

[mwhities]

Check the specs of my 2010 MacBook. Boots in 16 seconds, apps open in split seconds, and shutdown faster.

 

[Superman041]

Check the specs of my 2010 MacBook. Boots in 16 seconds, apps open in split seconds, and shutdown faster.

I'm going to book an appt at the genius bar for them to have a look.. maybe they can do something

 

[mwhities]

I'm going to book an appt at the genius bar for them to have a look.. maybe they can do something

Just remember, I have 8G ram and a SSD drive. You should look into upgrading if it's an option.

 

[Superman041]

Just remember, I have 8G ram and a SSD drive. You should look into upgrading if it's an option.[/QUOTE/]

Been told Apple officially only supports upto 4GB , initially I had 2GB upgraded it to 4GB.

How much ate SSD for Macbook 2010 unibody ?

 

[israelmunoz]

Most possibly, it boils down to either of two options,

1) Your OS is corrupted in some way, thus, the loading times. (Not so probable)

2) Your hard drive is going down the tube. (VERY probable)

I'd first recommend you to back up ALL of your important files (even if it is not failing, it's the smartest thing to do). Then, download UltimateBootCD, burn it, and put it in your computer and restart it and boot from it.
The CD has some tests for hard drives (I'd recommend the SeaTools one).

See what that tells you, if that passes, then I'd check the RAM (UBCD also has Memtest), although with those symptoms I wouldn't place a bet on faulty RAM.

Try that and tell us what up!

 

[Superman041]

Just remember, I have 8G ram and a SSD drive. You should look into upgrading if it's an option.

Been told Apple officially only supports upto 4GB , initially I had 2GB upgraded it to 4GB.

How much are SSD for Macbook 2010 unibody ?

 

[mwhities]

Been told Apple officially only supports upto 4GB , initially I had 2GB upgraded it to 4GB.

How much are SSD for Macbook 2010 unibody ?

Are you still under AC? If not, slap 8G in the MB. I am currently using a 128G Samsung 830. About to buy a 256G SSD drive but, I'm not sure which I want to go with yet. Samsung and Crucial are the two I have thus far.

Look at the RAM spec on this page:

http://www.everymac.com/systems/app...-13-polycarbonate-unibody-mid-2010-specs.html

 

[tl01]

My MacBook was doing the same and resetting the PRam fixed it. Re installing the OS might help. You'd be surprised. Make a back up and give it a try.

 

[thekev]

I'm going to book an appt at the genius bar for them to have a look.. maybe they can do something

If you're running similar software and experiencing slowing speeds, that's not a ram thing. Sometimes more can mask it, and you may be constrained on memory. It's just if you're running the same basic stuff with the same memory, it wouldn't naturally slow down over time.

Before you do anything else, ensure your backups are up to date. You should have one regardless of hard drive health. Do it now. OSX has a notoriously bad file system (which they've tried to replace before). I find disk warrior helps considerably, but I wouldn't recommend buying it as I'm unsure how long it will be updated. It still requires a dvd to work on the boot drive which isn't a good sign in terms of longevity. I'd probably do a number of things. First I'd check the ram via a single user memory testing utility like memtest. If you find any errors over several cycles, replace ram and do a clean install of the OS. I'd do a fresh install of OSX either way in case anything is messed up. Supposedly pram can affect boot times due to the things that are stored within it. I'd zap that as well. If the drive is actually failing, you'll need to replace it. It's a common issue, but many people use times like that to upgrade them, especially with the falling prices of ssds.

The genius bar won't do much. They may run a few utilities and check for extremely obvious things. If it requires repairs, they'll give you a quote and check it in. This is about as much as they can do.

Just remember, I have 8G ram and a SSD drive. You should look into upgrading if it's an option.[/QUOTE/]

Been told Apple officially only supports upto 4GB , initially I had 2GB upgraded it to 4GB.

How much ate SSD for Macbook 2010 unibody ?

Bleh upgrades only help if you were already constrained or a migration to new software produced such an issue. They also help when something like a drive is going bad, as it obviously removes the problematic part. This shouldn't be the only advice people get on here, as it's not always the system spec. For a range of tasks, you can get decent performance from a 2008 era model if you aren't trying to run the latest thing.